Guild Wars 2

BobbyStein.2315:

Dimitris.3195:

Will post opinion for the next wing soon! Will not probably get far the first day but since there is something at the beginning as well we will have something to talk about Cheers!

We put it in specifically for raiders and lorehounds to catch up with the Forsaken Thicket story. It’s in a safe spot where squad members can explore before the action starts.

Just checked out the aforementioned journal at the beginning of the Stronghold of the Faithful! Unfortunately it is university exam period here and me and my guild won’t be able to attempt the raid just yet

For starters I really like the fact that it is a journal of someone who has seen things from a different perspective from us and the imprisoned pact squad because it gives a sense of doubt about what is going on in the Forsaken Thicket, “was it really Mordremoth’s death that cause this?”, “is it also the case of the mutation of Slothasor?” It gives the feeling that even the Durmand Priory cannot completely explain what has transpired. Second, I really like the fact that you have put info in there that doesn’t necessarily focus only on the happenings of the previous wings (Spirit Vale, Salvation Pass), but that you also put forward theories about the nature of the Bloodstone and magical research, as it also offers that sense of doubt I mentioned before. No cutscene, but still pretty informative, it shows that you have put some thinking into continuing a fan-favorite story from GW1, and connecting it to the lore and narrative of GW2 by bringing references to Mordremoth to the fold etc.

Now what I mentioned before creates a really good investigation sort of plot, it is good to get that sort of information from a journal, but it could be our journal! Our characters trying to solve the secret of the Forsaken Thicket in a way like the Scarlet investigation just before the ending of Season 1 in Divinity’s Reach, maybe it could even give even more meaning to the empty raid, after the bosses are dead. Players killed the bosses? Time to find out what happened to this place called Spirit Vale trying to solve the mystery that will lead us to the great secret of the Stronghold of the Faithful.

Kossage.9072:

I’d like to ask people discussing the difficulty and accessibility of raids to start a new topic on the subject so we can keep this thread on track. This thread is about raid narrative and lore, after all.

This will be my final post on this thread until the release of wing 3, but I want to take a moment and thank you for putting forth this great post! I can see that you put some time and research in it and it is good to see that there are people that care as much for lore and how the world works in Tyria as I do! I am a university student and I am a member of a relatively big guild(more than a 100 members), but still not many of us have the time to raid. I was part of our main raiding group and we managed up until now to almost kill Gorseval, good stuff! I appreciate your post even more so because many of the things you mentioned are things I didn’t even know about because of our slow raiding progression

Again, thank you for this and I really hope that many of the arguments that have been raised will be put to rest at some point, I always had faith in ArenaNet and I believe that at some point they will manage to find a middle ground on this debate about lore and accessibility of said lore. For now I will wait to experience that first part of wing 3 and come back here to post a hopefully constructive opinion about the narrative and lore of the raids, until then cheers!

BobbyStein.2315:

Please keep the discussions civil and on topic. This thread isn’t for debating “Raids vs. Living World” or “easy mode” but for answering high level questions regarding how raid lore fits into the rest of the game.

Here’s a tidbit for lorehounds and non-raiders, in case you’re curious about Stronghold of the Faithful but are nervous about raiding. You can enter wing 3 and get some lore and story bits right at the beginning. Anyone in a raid squad can do it.

Would love to hear from from raiders and non-raiders after the release is live and people have had a chance to check it out. We value your constructive feedback.

Really sorry for getting a bit out of topic with the “story mode”. Will post opinion for the next wing soon! Will not probably get far the first day but since there is something at the beginning as well we will have something to talk about Cheers!

DrEckers.2039:

If Arenanet should not invest in raids that only 5% of the player population plays, why should Anet invest in opening up the bossfights to the even smaller lore enthusiast and role playing community?

First investing to make a second, more user-friendly version of the Raid would not be as much of a process since the most of it (models, animations, map, etc.) is already prepared. Second you say that the number of the lore enthusiasts is even smaller than those playing raids often, which is simply wrong. Just from looking at the fame of Youtubers like WoodenPotatoes in the GW2 community you can see that the people that care about the lore and the story of the game are not as few as you think. Most of the people I know care about the story and the lore, not as many care about raids.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Dimitris.3195:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Dimitris.3195:

Neox.3497:

Ohoni.6057:

It is a good thing that Raids exist in this game, it adds to the variety and now that fractals are getting certain attention and dungeons have improved as well as a game feature it is one of the best time for PvE players.

You mean instanced content players. For players that enjoy open world content the only new things added over the past six months have been the Leyline events, Bandit bounties, and Legendary moneypits, most of that over the last couple months.

Also the amount of story in the 3 wings are like 3 of the 16 HoT story missions and the 3 wing maps together are like 1/3 of a single HoT map. So the 3 wings are basically only ~15% of the HoT open world maps in terms of content.

And it’s also better than the whole of the HoT story! That is the point, not that its’ quantity is big but that its’ quality is superb and not everyone can experience it.

Ask someone to open you a finished instance. Done. You are experiencing raid story like all raiders. Or even better watch a youtube video from gw2 lore nerds and get a detailed recap of the story complete with explanations, theories and other stuff. Literally the only thing you will miss is a bit of gold and some loot from the raid bosses.

Do you really think that is the solution? To me that statement is as lazy as when the developers said it themselves, it is like telling someone to let you enter the end of the Arah story mode and talk to the NPCs to get the story of said dungeon.

Raid story is told through hidden notes, environment and npc dialogue. It does not work like arah.

Are you telling me that Matthias, the very first true White Mantle member in Guild Wars 2 or his dialogue during the fight does not tell part of the story? Simply not true! To the story fighting Mordremoth or Zhaitan in person is as important as fighting Matthias or whatever the last boss of the Stronghold of the Faithful is going to be (possibly Lazarus), and just a run through of what remains isn’t going to give the full context of the plot of the Forsaken Thicket. And telling to experience the story through Youtube is even more atrocious, I paid the game to watch the story through that medium, not through one of the lore experts.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Dimitris.3195:

Neox.3497:

Ohoni.6057:

It is a good thing that Raids exist in this game, it adds to the variety and now that fractals are getting certain attention and dungeons have improved as well as a game feature it is one of the best time for PvE players.

You mean instanced content players. For players that enjoy open world content the only new things added over the past six months have been the Leyline events, Bandit bounties, and Legendary moneypits, most of that over the last couple months.

Also the amount of story in the 3 wings are like 3 of the 16 HoT story missions and the 3 wing maps together are like 1/3 of a single HoT map. So the 3 wings are basically only ~15% of the HoT open world maps in terms of content.

And it’s also better than the whole of the HoT story! That is the point, not that its’ quantity is big but that its’ quality is superb and not everyone can experience it.

Ask someone to open you a finished instance. Done. You are experiencing raid story like all raiders. Or even better watch a youtube video from gw2 lore nerds and get a detailed recap of the story complete with explanations, theories and other stuff. Literally the only thing you will miss is a bit of gold and some loot from the raid bosses.

Do you really think that is the solution? To me that statement is as lazy as when the developers said it themselves, it is like telling someone to let you enter the end of the Arah story mode and talk to the NPCs to get the story of said dungeon. No! Sometimes I like to roleplay and I want my character to play a part in the new battle against the White Mantle, I want my character, and as a consequence me, to experience the events of the raid. Why do I have to be a hardcore Raid player to achieve that and why is it even so bad in many people’s eyes to give an easier story mode to the masses just for story’s sake? It will literally take nothing away from those who are enjoying the Raid system, it will just give to the casual roleplayers and lore nerds a good story because sometimes the story is the bosses themselves, not the difficulty of them.

Neox.3497:

Ohoni.6057:

It is a good thing that Raids exist in this game, it adds to the variety and now that fractals are getting certain attention and dungeons have improved as well as a game feature it is one of the best time for PvE players.

You mean instanced content players. For players that enjoy open world content the only new things added over the past six months have been the Leyline events, Bandit bounties, and Legendary moneypits, most of that over the last couple months.

Also the amount of story in the 3 wings are like 3 of the 16 HoT story missions and the 3 wing maps together are like 1/3 of a single HoT map. So the 3 wings are basically only ~15% of the HoT open world maps in terms of content.

And it’s also better than the whole of the HoT story! That is the point, not that its’ quantity is big but that its’ quality is superb and not everyone can experience it.

Ohoni.6057:

It is a good thing that Raids exist in this game, it adds to the variety and now that fractals are getting certain attention and dungeons have improved as well as a game feature it is one of the best time for PvE players.

You mean instanced content players. For players that enjoy open world content the only new things added over the past six months have been the Leyline events, Bandit bounties, and Legendary moneypits, most of that over the last couple months.

Still it is PvE content, people that don’t play PvP or WvW have things to do, from dungeons, to fractals to Raids to Jungle events to dailies etc. There is a slew of content if you are willing to look for it Though I have to agree that the current content drought is a problem that ArenaNet will have to solve at some point :/ It is true that people looking for new things don’t have many things in their hands

It is a good thing that Raids exist in this game, it adds to the variety and now that fractals are getting certain attention and dungeons have improved as well as a game feature it is one of the best times for PvE players. But there is still the issue of the bar of the Raids for people to finish it. Me and my guild are not hardcore players, but we have managed to beat the Vale Guardian, and we are close on beating Gorseval, too. It is a great experience overall and the encounters and the learning curve they offer are great, but we still want to experience that story! A good story deep in the lore of the world of Guild Wars the likes of which we haven’t seen since LS2, 1 and a half years ago, barred behind the Raid system. It is sad to me that they have come up with such a good and complex story but not all people can experience it. It even enhances the fact that Mordremoth actually died, that even then his death “awoke” the White Mantle. Why not give the players the chance to play a downscaled story mode version of this with no rewards? There are people out there that actually love immersing themselves in the lore and the story of the world ArenaNet has created, they shouldn’t be keeping it from them. As I said there should be no rewards in this downscaled version, sometimes the story is a reward of its own. I just want my GW2 character to fight against the guys that my character in GW1 defeated

While doing content in Auric Basin, specifically the message of the last Forgotten to the Exalted I tried to make in my mind a timeline of how things happened with Tarir, the creation of the Exalted etc. We know that Tarir was erected after the events of Guild Wars (since there was no trace of it in Maguuma during the events of the first game), but a long time before the events of Guild Wars 2 and also during that time the Exalted came to be.

My question is when exactly did the Forgotten leave his parting message to the Exalted? According to the text we find throughout the city that particular Forgotten lived through the events that led to the death of Glint, maybe even witnessed it, since he references it. This event took place, about 6 years before the start of Guild Wars 2, so the message was probably written during that time, when potentially the Exalted were still in hibernation. Yet, if I am not mistaken, they revere this particular text, in a way that it might fool someone it existed long before the events of Guild Wars 2, before even the Exalted slept.

I won’t ask whether or not this particular Forgotten could still be out there, since that delves into possible spoiler territory, but I would like to know if the reference to Glint was a mistake by the developers or actual fact, so I can trace more accurately when the message was left.

Thank you sir for answering our questions! Cheers!

A fix came to the most recent update about the personal story step that the “Forging the Pact” initiates, did that actually count as a fix to the already broken quest lines for those who had done that step before the patch, or do we wait for another patch that will fix that issue, too? Also thanks for being clear with us on this Bobby, keep up the good work!

Started the HoT story yesterday and did the Prologue and Torn from the sky and while the cutscenes for me proced normally in the cutscene in the prologue I could hear nothing, not even music, and in the cutscene with Rytlock the only things I could hear were only the music and Rytlock’s voice, nothing else, not sound effects or anything. It might be of note that I was using a USB headset.

The Echoes of the Past episode totally broke when Tangled Paths was released. I had completed it by episode’s 6 release 3 times on different characters and I had also completed all the achievements. Then Tangled Paths is released, for some reason I log in and episode 5 is active even though I had completed it and I am blocked from entering Glint’s Lair because of a bug on Ogden.

I sent at that time a support ticket, which directed to in-game bug report and forum bug report, I did both, it’s been a month or so and still nothing. This thing where Anet releases a patch and something completely different gets broken without explanation really needs to be solved. It has been happening ever since release. At the very least we deserve an update that the matter is being looked at, we have been in the dark since Tangled Paths and we are almost half a month away from the final episode.

And ok I am one of those who has actually finished the episode before the bug but there are people out there who have potentially paid for the episode and are barred from completing it.

Same thing happened to me with Echoes of the Past but the saddest thing is that upon reaching Ogden in the Hidden Arcana the client bugs, cursors showing up on the mini map getting too large, and Ogden will just tell to ask him anything I want, prompting to questions about the Elder Dragons, which should happen after Glint’s Lair, instead of giving me the prompt to go and interact with the Hourglass, thus barring me from completing the episode… Relogging and redoing did not work.

Sent a ticket to support with a complete description and the answer I got was to give a bug reportn in-game (when there is no section in-game for specific living world bugs) and/or the forums… At least now I know I am not the only one having trouble…

A very good topic sir, bravo bravo! I highly urge you as to read the other topics on the matter, if you haven’t done so yet, that many people, among them me as well, have posted and also join the conversations, too. This change to the warrior in my opinion is mostly unfair and let me say that like you, I am also a warrior who was fairly open to nerfs like the HamBow one, but I believe that this one was an overkill for our profession.

Sebrent let me tell you just one thing, that, even though NeHoMaR is right when he says that the 2 classes are totally different, but let’s say that I will be the “devil’s advocate” for now, maybe, just maybe what happens to us warriors is happening to mesmers since the very beginning.That the mesmers don’t have time to shatter their illusions because the mobs die very fast, or maybe illusions are slow, etc.

But in the end do you know what the main difference of the problem is? That at the very least you get the chance to use those skills of yours, because you see it is the main mechanic of the mesmers and well, we the warriors don’t get even that. We don’t even get the chance to use burst skills, the main mechanic of our profession. Actually right now, to me at least, it feels like I have been stripped of my burst skills, mostly in PvE.

And again as I said in another similar post these days please don’t try to turn an argument that we have, in a game we bought to play and have fun, into a “ridiculous complaint” or, as others have said a “whinning”. It’s nothing like that and saying that it is, is at the very least disrespectful.

And to end this reply here, we see that almost since the very beginning the warrior profession, the profession that I chose to play with, had been scorned from almost all the other profession about being “too” strong, and you know what? They were right, honestly they were, we were too strong but every complaint from other profession and every acceptance of the problem and embracing of a solution from us led to what has happened these days, mainly breaking the PvE warrior. All because of “balance” but at PvP nowadays I see 3 rangers running around killing everything they see in mere seconds. I have never complained about other professions, ever, not the thief, not the necro, no one, but this is the first time that I will say that something is really wrong here.

Also a an update from personal experience having played some matches yesterday, but it seems that ironically the place where the change is less visible, at least whatever has to to do with adrenaline depletion, is PvP which those changes where mostly targeted to for “balance”. So in my opinion, as I stated above, it mostly has to do with PvE and WvW contact, which I haven’t tried yet but I am planning to.

In the end in PvP while teamfights were mostly unchanged, to my eyes at least, solo fights were a bit harder because it is harder to generate adrenaline and go all out which in my opinion is neither very good, nor very bad. Nonetheless the main problem with PvE sadly persists. It’s sad that, right now full adrenaline burst skills can properly be used mostly in boss fights…

Well yeah sure you are one warrior out there using a GS well if I remember well there a ton more warriors out there, I personally play with sword/axe hybrid build. From what you say you can generate adrenaline in a fair way, well I just can’t and I have been playing the warrior since beta, tested almost all the weapon combinations in various cases, so I believe I know how to play this profession good enough to know when something is wrong with the adrenaline generation, mostly in PvE, yes, PvE.

I don’t know it might be your particular build, I have no idea why u can generate adrenaline fairly well, but in case it is the build then that means that the game is forcing me to play with “certain” builds so that I can use the mechanic that the profession I made has exclusive access to. Well sir/lady I think that is wrong because it makes me feel bad for having my main being a warrior. And just because you typed to the forums to STOP does not mean that we have to, because most of us truly feel that something is wrong and please just please stop saying that every argument is equal to whining or “QQing”. Please distinguish those two factors cause they are totally different

I totally agree, wrote a post about half an hour ago about that too, we must help anet understand that is a huge problem

Just logged after the patch to the game with my main lvl 80 warrior and went to do an event just to test the adrenaline change which I had, at the start agreed with. But let me ask you am I the only one who thinks that the warrior is basically useless now in events? I use sword/axe and longbow, having berserker stance in my utilities.

The event was all about killing mobs and we were more than 10 ppl there and I never not even once got to use my full adrenaline skill. Why? Well I attacked the mob generated some adrenaline, killed the mob, until I got to the next mob my adrenaline bar had almost been empty and so it goes. In the end during the whole 5-6 minute event I got to use my burst only once and that after I used berserker stance, with the longbow, with the adrenaline bar being half way through.

Was it intentional to make the warriors burst generate so hard? Because actually it doesn’t feel like the warrior has a profession mechanic at all. Is it so hard for the thief to generate initiative? Is it so hard for the necro to use death shroud to save himself? Now don’t get me wrong, I am guy who would support the change but I thought that it wouldn’t cause that huge of an impact on the way I play. And I can see as well what will happen in PvP in the next few days. The Ham/Bow nerf was a big yet albeit good and clever change too, since it offered to the overall balance between the 8 professions but does this change offer as much now too? WvW will be the same as the events in PvE.

Am I the only one who really thinks that this is not a bit fair for the warriors? I have been playing my particular warrior since launch so let me ask, was it intentional to make me and possibly many other ppl feel that their warriors are utterly useless now? I have invested a lot in this game to feel right now that it was a bad choice at the start to make a warrior.

So I would like to have some further clarification about the bonus ranks in PvP that will be given to players, for example players of mid 50’s will almost reach the dragon rank, but what I do not get is if that will happen because rank points will be given as a bonus to all players that have been playing sPvP to an extent, like say a rank 30 player will reach rank 60 or something, or if these bonus ranks will be given because of the tons of rank points that 50+ players have already gathered. Thank you.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This is exactly the kind of thing the Living World platform was designed to do and every evolution of it gets us one step closer. Kudos to your sir for taking the time to think about our direction and what the constraints of the platform are in its infancy and what it will be able to do moving forward.

I was going to snip your section so i could reply properly but i don’t want the context to remain, therefore….cont

Seeing Nike’s amazing idea I would also like to express an idea I had on this matter and provide a “solution” if I could call it so to people who are asking how could something like this be possible with the different servers on the way. Well i believe the answer lies not with the players but with the villains. We recently saw that Scarlet has already, in a way, influenced even the mists, since in the WvW we can see spores. So I ask if Scarlet, or perhaps, any other villain be capable to reach the mists why not be able to reach other worlds/servers, too? We all know that, in this case Scarlet, doesn’t mean well so in case the races tried to expand in other parts of the worlds trying to defeat their enemies, the ones to thwart their plans would not only be the local inhabitants but the main villains, too, who could have crossed into different worlds to “stop” expedition progress. So the different worlds separately fight against the local inhabitants but, as a “combined” try to stop the villain. So in the end the result would be determined by the way different servers, as combined force, handled the main villain and thus the expedition could either succeed or fail in all servers. I hope I made myself clear on this. Also many bravo to Nike for the excellent idea

Guys at Arenanet and all people at the support center thanks alot for the immediate help you provided to me. My problem has been solved. If it was a hack attempt I lost nothing so I am happy. Thanks again. Keep up the good work

When I tried to log in yesterday the patch was not out yet

Thanks for resolving the problem for me Anet

Thanks for the reply Jeffrey. Really appreciated

what about the bloodstone? I am more concerned about that

wads okay you may be right about that but let me ask you something because right we are not talking about only my case or your case but for everyone playing the game. What if the world someone is representing is not that good at WvW or what if on that borderland there is not much activity by his world? Should that person just stop farming badges?

Hello guys I just submitted a ticket on the support team but I would also like that you check it out if possible and i will absolutely let you know if the support team resolves my problem. Look now I tried to log in today and it was not logging in as fast as other times. So I pressed cancel and log-in again, only this time what I got was a “transaction in progress” error message. What is that? i have never bought anything with gems, I have not even bought gems and I am really scared about a hacking attempt. Then I tried to log in again and it worked but if you can check and tell me what that was I would be grateful. Thanks

look, first of all I love PvP/WvW and PvE the same, I love playing both but when someone tries to farm for the legendary weapons and actually manages to get everything (I haven’t yet, but just saying) and then goes for the badges, which in my opinion is the easiest and most straight-forward to gather, and then some people come and kill you all the time in a place that all players from all worlds come to gather something without a need to kill. Isn’t this just annoying? And yeah some will say “you can go once”, no I won’t go once cause I need 500 badges. I have seen in videos in youtube that some people are not getting hostile in the puzzle of the borderlands, even when I went some did nothing some did just some stupid knockdowns or set traps in jumping points, that’s okay though cause you just drop, you can go back up again but when 2 or more people start hunting you to actually kill you in a place like that well at least in my case, I go mad.

Guys at Anet please, just please make it possible in WvW that people aren’t able to kill each other in the puzzles. Just come on I have been there like 2 times and I have been killed both by 2 or more people. That actually becomes annoying after a bit.

Are Bloodstone Shards or Mystic Clovers Account bound? I ask because I would like to gather one of them with another character of mine. Is there someone who knows?

Jeffrey I have already sold the items I got from the 3 bags since they had no use for me, so I would like to know if I will still receive the new tokens that will be implemented in the future. Thanks for the info as well

Apparently people are not reading all the replies on this forum so I will say again, as other people did, to all those who say that botters do not affect the karma system that they actually do. Botters with GOLD they get GEMS, with GEMS they get BOOSTERS. Someone said this before and still people are saying the exact opposite. Oh and thanks a lot for the reply Jon on this matter. And someone said that 2 million sales is nothing if 1.9 quit the game. Just because you are quitting doesn’t mean that everyone is quitting. If you wish then go you won’t be missed but I bet all those who quit will come back again when the game is stabilized and more expansions are out, and also just don’t try to push others out of the game just because you got frustrated. Admit it you are the minority of the players that are quitting, those who like the game will stay faithful to it and be patient, and trust me they are many.

Don’t they actually see that with the DR system they don’t reward those which they so much wanted to reward as seen form the artcles, manifesto etc. , the players? Ok, the DR system was good at first in my opinion, when it was only in dungeons thus blocking players from gettin like 320 tokens a day doing like 6 runs. It got messed up with not working well in dungeons, giving less rewards but instead of fixing that problem they have implemented it in the maps, too. Come on anet

Today after I saw Arah was open again I went in for the first time ever. We got the 3 cores all okay and boarded the airship, passed through some giants throwing risen on us and then a cutscene rolled telling us to board a chopper. Too bad the chopper was like 10 meters away from the airship and I want to ask here. Was this the bug that it blocked progress in story mode and it should have been fixed with yesterday’s patch? Oh and on top of that I couldn’t exit the dungeon to reset other than re-logging. After I did the relog, disbanded with my group and banded again and go in to a reseted dungeon we went in and the dungeon was not reset. After a rage quit of the group I experimented and entered in alone. The dungeon was still not reset. What i remember is that about 2-3 weeks ago if there were 2 members in the group the dungeon was reseting automatically kicking someone out, why isn’t this happening anymore and if there is a fix that anybody might know in the forums please tell me.

120924-005481 just sent it and thanks